The Avengers is less than three months away at this point, which is no doubt a strange feeling foreverybody who has been eagerly anticipating the film’s arrival since Nick Fury appeared in Iron Man‘s post-credits scene.

While some fans are no doubt worried about the end product not matching the massive hype built upon a well-received Super Bowl trailer, there are likely others who are worried about the digital effects not effectively doing their job, like so many superhero films before. Well, Avengers SFX Supervisor, Chris Wells, is here to soothe your fears on all of the above.

On the topic of the film’s opening sequence – courtesy of Starburst Magazine – Wells said:

“We’re doing what essentially boils down to the prelude of the movie,’ There’s a whole intro that happens before you start even getting the titles and it’s pretty big. There’s nothing small in this movie. I went to a screening with all the temporary visual effects and it was pretty fleshed out. It’s a long movie but it doesn’t feel like it. Out of all the comic book movies and franchises I’ve worked on, this is the best one I’ve seen so far.”

On the topic of big action VS. smaller character moments in The Avengers, Wells said:

“I think they nailed both. Joss and I have worked on some projects before and he does a very good job with characters. Since this is the first time that we see these guys together as a unit, he had to address all their personal dealings with one another. I think he did a very good job of setting up the characters based on what we know from the Marvel franchise, integrating them together with all their differences and similarities and then getting on with business. And just when you think the movie is a character piece it just goes nuts.”

On the topic of bad guys that The Avengers might face:

“[There’s no Red Skull in the movie], but that’s okay, because there’s enough bad guys to go around.”

Could we get the number of villains narrowed down here? 1? 2? 5 or more?

Wells himself is apparently weary of superhero films in general – can’t really blame him – so it’s good to hear that he’s so enthusiastic about The Avengers.

Speaking of enthusiasm, Wells continued:

“I promise you it’s not going to be boring. This thing has [gotten] so big that Marvel [is] dwarfing their other franchises. For people who enjoy the comics and haven’t really liked the way some of the characters were treated in other movies, I think they’re going to be a little more appeased by this one. Especially the Hulk. They let the Hulk be Hulk and that’s great. He acts more like the comic book Hulk. It’s fun. My biggest problem with every single superhero movie is I don’t think the payoff ever matches the build up. This one definitely does.”

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.

For the full interview with Chris Wells, check out the next Starburst issue, on sale in March.